Also 6 fervoure, 7 ferver. [ME. fervor, -our, a. OF. fervor, -our (mod.F. ferveur) = Pr. and Sp. fervor, It. fervore, ad. L. fervōre-m, f. fervēre to be hot. For use of fervour or fervor see FAVOUR.]
1. Glowing condition, intense heat.
c. 1440. Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), II. xxxiv. They streyne hemself thrugh grete vyolence and panten so strongly that they brast in to bodily feruours as they wolde drawe downe god fro heuen to hem.
1529. More, Dyaloge, I. Wks. 1164/2. These prayers of our Sauiour at his bitter Passion, and of his holye Martirs, in the feruoure of theyr torment.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrimes, II. 1013. Ouer it, perpetually burneth a number of Lamps, which haue fulled the roofe like the in-side of a Chimney, and yeelds vnto the roome an immoderate feruor.
1725. Pope, Odyss., X. 182.
| Some power divine, who pities human woe, | |
| Sent a tall stag, descending from the wood, | |
| To cool his fervour in the chrystal flood. |
1794. Mrs. Piozzi, Synon., I. 207. Such effects follow naturally the fervour of an African climate.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, viii. 71.
| Those deserts of immeasurable sand, | |
| Whose age-collected fervors scarce allowed | |
| A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring. |
1891. Sir R. Ball, in Melbourne Argus, 16 May. The moon was also doubtless in a condition of equal fervour.
† b. Of water: Boiling, seething. Obs.
a. 1440. Found. St. Bartholomew’s, 43. The swellynge [sea], yn his feruor … leift vp hym-self.
1656. trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 324. All fervour or seething is not caused by fire.
2. Warmth or glow of feeling, passion, vehemence, intense zeal; an instance of the same.
c. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 250. Fervor of thoght.
1382. Wyclif, John ii. 17. The feruour of loue of thin hous hath etun me.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 363 b/1. She was most deuoute and had more feruour of deuocion.
1531. Dial. on Laws Eng., II. liii. (1638), 160. A veniall sinne … letteth the fervour thereof [charity].
1638. Sir R. Baker, trans. Letters of Mounsieur de Balzac, I. 30. Such fervour is as well beseeming fresh souldiers as young Fryers.
1732. Law, Serious C., xiv. (ed. 2), 240. And begin to know what saints and holy men have meant, by fervours of devotion.
1830. Disraeli, Chas. I., III. ix. 196. The fervour of loyalty vied with the pride of magnificence.
1882. A. W. Ward, Dickens, iii. 50. In New York, in particular, he had been fêted, with a fervour unique even in the history of American enthusiasms, under the resounding title of the ‘Guest of the Nation.’
